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James Wolfson
Why I’m not there now, but will be there in September.
It’s Sunday, July 12, 2015. Right now I’m sitting here in Sarasota (nickname: Paradise), having just finished reading Doris Kearns Goodwin’s The Bully Pulpit (about Roosevelt, Taft and the Muckrakers) and writing some grant application for some of my new favorite charities. About 12 years ago, there was a PBS special about the special integration efforts in Shaker. I wrote a letter of congratulation to Mark Freeman, then the superintendent, and explained that I was very proud of the efforts that he had been making, and though there were many problems, he never quit working on them. Shaker was the only place in the whole country that was making such an effort to maintain social justice and academic quality together. I was proud to be making a similar, though certainly an effort of smaller scope, when I started an afterschool program that served over 2,000 at-risk kids between 2004 and 2014. I attributed my interest in social justice and education to my having the privilege to be one of the few people who spent every year of my pre-college education, including kindergarten, in a Shaker school. When my parents moved to Pepper Pike before my senior year, I insisted in staying at Shaker High. Mark Freeman’s letter of response hangs on my office wall.
I’m going to miss the reunion because, after about four years of trying, I was not willing to pay professional money to create a “Ken Burns” type video of a book I wrote about John Brown, the abolitionist, who many people recognize as “America’s first terrorist.” By some chance, I finally found a group of high school kids to do the job for free and get a whole lot more than money for their efforts. My directors, producers, actors and artists are all part of a group of high school kids from the Career Magnet Charter School, also in Chambersburg, PA. Their class is called “Early American History.” On Saturday, as part of a celebration of the 151st anniversary of the burning of Chambersburg, (the only town in the North to be burned by the Confederate Army.) I’m going to moderate an hourly showing of John Brown, Is Violence the Answer, combined with a discussion of what John Brown’s story means to all of us today. After living through the last two weeks’ events, I really do mean today.
My favorite subject at Shaker High was American History; my favorite teacher was Mr. Wheeler, who always carefully explained why he was kicking my ass. So, of course, I went to Michigan and studied industrial engineering, got my MBA in Accounting, and my PhD. and became a CPA so I could become a small business consultant and accounting professor for about 33 years, all so I could become a glorified social worker (see above).
Now let me go back.
I had never even heard of Chambersburg before I was 50? Have you ever heard of it?
That there is a Southgate in Chambersburg, PA, owned by a Shaker Shafran?
How did a guy who loved history become an accounting teacher, and then a social worker?
How did our school district become famous for its real integration efforts, when so many of the rest were trying to turn back the clock to segregation?
Did you know that Mark Freeman is a member of Suburban Temple, where some of us have our names in the cornerstone that was laid there in 1954?
Did you know that John Brown grew up about fifteen miles from Shaker Heights and began his last infamous journey in Chambersburg?
Did you know that Ken Burns is a good friend of one of my crazy fraternity brothers at Michigan (he used to smoke two cigarettes at one time, with one in each nostril and also father of the Rotisserie League), and that fraternity, the campus leader in academics, athletics, and charity, just got kicked off campus there?
David Panther White does know this.
Did you know that the study of John Brown and American Civil War are now considered part of “Early” American History?
Did you know that you could literally pull quotes from Goodwin’s The Bully Pulpit describing America’s problem over 100 years ago and slap them into a discussion describing our own problems today in an American History class at Shaker?
How does an email from someone you’ve corresponded with for 11 years wind up in your email trash?
That over the last 50 years, have you heard lots of conflicting stories about the state of Shaker at any given time?
That I’ve lived in many places over that time, including eight years on a completely integrated block on Tolland Road?
I still can’t think of a better place to have (at least, partly) raised my children and I still can’t think of a better place I’d want to do that now.
Jim Wolfson
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